Andy McNab - War torn

'Christ!' said Dave. 'We're not going to a compound. Or the camp. We're going to the Early Rocks.'

As they drew closer he began to understand how massive the rocks were. They had looked like stark, strange shapes jutting from the desert sands in the distance but close-up they were more complex. There must be water, because bushes and small trees sprouted all around. And running around the base of the rocks was a ring of earthworks at least two metres high. So the mysterious shrine was a natural fortress.

The massive rocks towered over them as they reached the entrance to the shrine. Built around one rock as though it had grown out of the sand was a tiny gatehouse. The wagons slowed as they reached it and threw out some of the SAS men. The wagons speeded up again and the boss passed on the orders: 'In sixty seconds we will have the rock circle very loosely surrounded. You will dismount and close in on the circle, scrambling over the bank at the base of the rocks. We don't know exactly what we'll find inside except probably underground tunnels and, we hope, Topaz Zero. Your job is to suppress the enemy so that our colleagues can locate him. The enemy will be positioning now. So take advantage of their confusion to debus fast and close in rapidly on the rocks.'

Dave said at once: 'Fix bayonets, lads.'

The drivers were told to stop one hundred metres from the rocks.

'Go closer!' Dave ordered his driver.

'But the boss said-'

'Closer! You can move back when we're all out.'

The driver screamed towards the rocks and stopped about sixty metres away.

'Everybody out, go, go, go!' Sol yelled at 1 Section.

The men began to rush towards the rock circle. The weight of their kit was oppressive. It bounced on their backs and their pouches rattled on their bodies. Binns, the lightweight, had been fast as a school kid. Now he was a lumbering animal, staggering and doubled over as he ran.

'I wish I could take this fucking shit off and really run!' he shouted to Streaky. But Streaky could not hear him over his own heaving breath.

Angus was still back at the wagon. In addition to his normal rifle, pistol, kit and ammo he had mortars and the sniper rifle too. By the time he had staggered down from the bus the others were halfway across the open ground. He knew he was carrying too much weight but wasn't sure what to leave. He paused and, before he could decide, the wagon moved off. Shit! Now he would have to take it all. And the others had nearly reached the rocks.

Fire erupted from all around the massive circle simultaneously, in a blaze of light, noise and smoke. The men who were still in exposed positions threw themselves onto their belt buckles on the desert sand, easy targets for the enemy.

All of 1 Section had reached the shelter of one of the massive stone pillars except Angus. They looked back now and saw him.

He lay still, head down, as though he'd already been shot, thinking, Shit, shit, shit. He could feel something like rain, and knew it was rounds. The rough sand bit into his cheeks. He dared to half look up once. All round him the desert danced with bouncing rounds. He put his head back down and knew that one of the rounds must hit him. They could not all miss him. His body was rigid with expectation. He wanted to yell and shout against his helplessness.

He heard helicopters overhead.

'Thank Christ! Where have they been?' roared Angus on PRR.

Dave responded.

'Don't get excited, McCall. There's nothing much they can do to help us, not with a hostage trapped inside.'

'Move forward, Angry,' shouted Sol's voice into his ear. 'It's just as safe as lying there.'

'I shouldn't have carried so much weight,' he moaned. He heard his own voice, whimpering a bit. He was going to die. So he might as well die courageously. The Families Officer might as well stand in his dad's hallway and say that Angus had died a heroic death. He began to stagger to his feet but the mortars he was carrying pulled his left side down and the rest of his body with it. Ping. A round whistled just over his shoulder. Good thing he hadn't stood up, then, or that one certainly would have got him. Except that now he was stuck here, giving the ragheads some easy target practice.

A few moments later he felt someone tugging on his arm.

'Get up, you lazy bastard, stop sleeping on the job.'

Jamie Dermott. Pulling him to his feet, grabbing some of the weight off him and firing the gimpy while the pair of them staggered across the desert together.

Angus didn't have time to think, feel surprise or be grateful. His whole body and mind were focused on running in Olympic time to the rest of the lads by the rock. It wasn't until they arrived safely and he slumped down, his mouth open, the breath never enough to fill his empty lungs, sweat pouring down his body, that relief began to seep from every pore. And then he understood that Jamie had saved his life.

He said: 'Fuck, Jamie. I mean, fuck.'

Jamie was red-faced and gasping too.

'Don't mention it,' he breathed.

'I could feel the fucking rounds scrape against my helmet! One missed my shoulder by that much…'

'You must have been just outside the flipflops' arcs of fire,' said Mal. 'I didn't think you could get here alive.'

Angus stood up, still red and panting, and reached for his water tube. He let out a roar.

'What's the matter, Angry?' asked Sol. 'Are you all right?'

'My fucking Camelbak's empty!'

Sol took a look.

'A round went through it,' he reported.

'Fucking, fucking hell! I'm thirsty!'

Sol handed him a bottle of water.

'There isn't anyone else in this whole platoon, Angry, who would moan about a round hitting their Camelbak instead of their vital organs.'

The heavy machine guns on the WMIKs were pounding at the other side of the shrine and the mortar men were busy. Sol's section put down fire where they saw muzzle flashes. But most of their rounds were bouncing off rock or getting lodged in the bank.

Dave was pinned down back at the Vector. The boss spoke to each of his section commanders in turn and confirmed that they had all their men up against the rocks. Sergeant Somers of 2 Platoon, on the other side of the shrine, was not so lucky. His Vector drivers had stopped further back and the men in one wagon had been too slow. They had debussed right into the contact. The bank was highest here and the enemy had taken advantage of this to feast on them. Dave saw CSM Kila rushing off in a wagon to deal with the casualties.

'I can see what's happening from back here better than you can,' Dave told his corporals. 'The choggies are firing through cracks in the rocks so you can forget firing back at them. A few insurgents are exposed on top of the ridge… See how many you can get.'

'Just look up there,' came the boss's voice.

Dave looked up. High on the top of a rock, like a man who had just taken the elevator to the roof of a skyscraper, was the silhouette of an insurgent with a weapon that was probably a Kalashnikov.

'Did he fly there? And with that weapon, too?'

'Ropes. Or they've carved steps up the back of the rocks.'

The man was kneeling down and lifting his weapon, capitalizing on the natural advantage of his position. Dave guessed he was aiming at Kila's casualty evacuation. He jumped out of the Vector with his SA80. It took just three shots. The body did not fall but remained slumped over the machine gun.

'Rule One,' Dave told it. 'The chances are that the best firing positions are the most exposed. Now let them try getting you down from there.'

1 Section edged cautiously around the rock to the base of the ridge, checking for figures at the top of it. They reached the place Sol had chosen for them to breach it. Now they were close it looked steeper.

'Fucking hell, they can just pick us off one by one as we climb up,' said Finn.